1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal device such as a liquid crystal light valve and an electronic apparatus such as a liquid crystal projector having the liquid crystal device.
2. Related Art
In order to improve the use efficient of incident light, micro lens arrays or micro lens array plates may be used together with liquid crystal devices. In such a case, since light to be vertically incident on a liquid crystal layer is collected by the micro lens array, the light has its direction changed and is made incident on the liquid crystal layer at an angle. When the light is incident on the liquid crystal layer at an angle, the light becomes out of phase, whereby the contrast and viewing angle of the liquid crystal device decrease.
For this reason, in liquid crystal devices having micro lens arrays, optical phase difference compensating elements are used. For example, in a liquid crystal projector disclosed in JP-A-2002-131750, as the optical phase difference compensating element, a film formed of an organic material is used. In JP-A-2002-14345, a discotic liquid crystal is used as the optical phase difference compensating element. In JP-A-2004-151252, a structural birefringence body formed of an inorganic material is disclosed. In the above-described technology, a phase difference of light that causes rays of light to be out of phase with each other is compensated by using such optical phase difference compensating elements, and thereby a decrease in the contrast is prevented and the viewing angle is widened.
When a compensation process is performed by using two or more optical phase difference compensating elements, an angle between the optical phase difference compensating elements is determined on the basis of characteristics of the liquid crystal. For example, when a TN (Twisted Nematic) mode is used, since the light is twisted by 90° by the liquid crystal layer, the optical phase difference compensating elements disposed in an incident side and an emitting side are arranged so as to form an angle of 90° therebetween. Accordingly, when the optical phase difference compensating elements are arranged, high precision is required for setting the angle therebetween. However, since many of the optical phase difference compensating elements having a film-like shape are arranged by being attached, it is very difficult to attain high precision for the arrangement. Furthermore, since there may be a case where attachment at a predetermined angle is not applicable, there is a technical problem in terms of operation efficiency or costs.